There are some real interesting bands out of Japan; Hitorie is one of them! The first track is Talkie Dance from their 2nd mini-album released this July, the second is 2013’s Rula Rula from their first full album, and the third is Senseless Wonder from 2014.
The Baseballs are a German Rockabilly band that got together in 2007 and have been cruising Europe ever since, with the occasional expedition to Australia and other interesting places. The first track here is 2014’s Goodbye Peggy Sue, from their recent album Game Day!. The second song is On My Way from the same source, and the third is Hello, the 2011 classic which evokes Dwayne Eddie, Jan and Dean, and The Beach Boys. This is only a small selection of the quality music created by this band band, if you like these there are many more songs to check out and enjoy.
Another great rock band from Japan are the Ulfuls, and they recently posted a new song, Sporty Party, that I really like. See all the athletic gear folks are wearing in this video? They recorded this as the ASICS “training ware” campaign song, which lead me to believe it might be a commercial. When I did a bit of research, it turned out the campaign was to enter a contest in which you had to answer questions on a survey. They will pull the names of 20 folks who entered and give them each a pair of premium Ulfuls live tour tickets, with a choice of venue of either Tokyo or Osaka. The contest started yesterday and runs until September 18th, so if you live near Japan or are traveling there soon and want to enter the contest go to the Sporty Party Campaign web site and fill out your entry. The tour will be recorded as part of their “Ulfuls tour 2015 Bontsubiatsuatsu (Live House ed)” release coming out later this year. The song Sporty Party will be on their new album Bonn Zwi Wai Wai being released on September 9th.
Previous Ulfuls posts: Ulfuls with Muppets, Ulfuls
Pretty much my favorite band out of Asia for the last few years, ONE OK ROCK has the chops, the attitude, and the skill set to own the rock world while based out of Japan. They started out around 2005, proving yet again that it takes about 10 years to become an overnight sensation in the music business. The first live track is called Decision, the second is Mighty Long Fall, then the official studio version of the latter song follows those. The live tracks are both from their recent Mighty Long Fall at Yokohama Stadium release, their 5th live DVD which they posted to their You Tube Channel. You have been able to get these tracks and others from them on iTunes for your permanent collection for a while now. But they signed with Warner Bros. Records recently, in a deal that includes releasing their work on CD and DVD in the US, starting with “35xxxv Deluxe Edition” in September. All songs will be in English, and the US version of the album will include two bonus tracks not on the Japanese version. They will be doing a North American tour in support of that release, with stops including Chicago, New York, Toronto, Silver Spring, and Houston.
Previous ONE OK ROCK posts, with music embeds: One OK Rock: Cry Out, Against The Current, More One OK Rock, Please!, One OK Rock: Taka!, Still More One OK Rock!, More Alt J-Rock, More J-Rock, and One OK Rock.
Associated: Rurouni Kenshin 3 trailer (movie), My First Story (band), RUROUNI KENSHIN 2 trailer (movie).
The band is Kankaku Piero (Sense Clown, approximately), and their first album Break came out at the beginning of June. They aren’t as new as that statement might make you think, because they put out 5 mini-albums before this latest release. The first track is A-Han!, new on their first full album. The second song is Mary from their 2013 mini-album, or Mary-san as they say at the beginning, and it was re-released as part of the new full album. Likewise the third song, O P P A I is also both from 2013 and the new album, I am not even going to try to guess what that tune translates into. The final track is 2014’s Japanese-Pop-Music, also on the new album.
Based out of Seattle, Washington, KEXP is public radio at its finest, and tonight we are featuring their presentation of The Dø. The band is percussion driven, but the percussion instruments they are playing are synthesizers controlling MIDI command strings and sample collections, which gives them a rather unique musical flavor. And with songs like Do You Really Want To Go Back In Time? you know I had to include them here. This is one of my favorite US radio stations for listening to great new music and learning about new bands from all over the world, but quite a few of them turn out to be from North America. The Dø is an excellent example of the kind of quality you can hear from this station…